Pharmageddon

This searing indictment, David Healy’s most comprehensive and forceful argument against the pharmaceuticalization of medicine, tackles problems in health care that are leading to a growing number of deaths and disabilities. Healy, who was the first to draw attention to the now well-publicized suicide-inducing side effects of many anti-depressants, attributes our current state of affairs to three key factors: product rather than process patents on drugs, the classification of certain drugs as prescription-only, and industry-controlled drug trials. These developments have tied the survival of pharmaceutical companies to the development of blockbuster drugs, so that they must overhype benefits and deny real hazards. Healy further explains why these trends have basically ended the possibility of universal health care in the United States and elsewhere around the world. He concludes with suggestions for reform of our currently corrupted evidence-based medical system.

"This meticulously documented book makes extraordinary claims with far-reaching intellectual and practical ramifications. It is the most powerful critique of the contemporary medical-industrial complex that I know."—Andrew T. Scull, author of Hysteria and Madness: A Very Short Introduction “This book shines a bright light on the pharmaceutical industry (and American healthcare) in the same way that Silent Spring called out the chemical industry and Unsafe at Any Speed called out the automobile industry. Pharmageddon is Healy's most important book to date. It will make a real contribution toward healing our sick system of pharmaceutical-driven medicine and helping doctors provide better care for their patients.”--Elizabeth Siegel Watkins, author of The Estrogen Elixir and On the Pill “In this startling book, David Healy argues that 'evidence-based' medicine—and a healthy dose of corrupt science—has led modern medicine off a cliff. His book is provocative, challenging, and informative, and ultimately it serves as a powerful manifesto for rethinking modern medicine.”--Robert Whitaker, author of Anatomy of an Epidemic: Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Drugs, and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America "Like a good detective story, Pharmageddon weaves together the history of modern medicine, the evolution of clinical trials and statistical analyses, changes in international patent laws, privatization of clinical research, blurring of the line between academics and industry, and the enabling role of medical journals. If you want to learn how to protect yourself (or your patients) from medical commercialism and how medical practice can be re-directed back toward its true mission, this book is a must read."—John Abramson, author of Overdosed America

This searing indictment, David Healy’s most comprehensive and forceful argument against the pharmaceuticalization of medicine, tackles problems in health care that are leading to a growing number of deaths and disabilities. Healy, who was the first to draw attention to the now well-publicized suicide-inducing side effects of many anti-depressants, attributes our current state of affairs to three key factors: product rather than process patents on drugs, the classification of certain drugs as prescription-only, and industry-controlled drug trials. These developments have tied the survival of pharmaceutical companies to the development of blockbuster drugs, so that they must overhype benefits and deny real hazards. Healy further explains why these trends have basically ended the possibility of universal health care in the United States and elsewhere around the world. He concludes with suggestions for reform of our currently corrupted evidence-based medical system.

"Exorbitant prices for lifesaving drugs, safety recalls affecting tens of millions of Americans, and soaring rates of addiction and overdose on prescription opioids have caused many to lose faith in pharmaceutical companies. Now, Americans are demanding national reckoning with a monolithic industry. In Pharma, award-winning journalist and New York Times best-selling author Gerald Posner uncovers the real story of the Sacklers, the family that became one of America's wealthiest from the success of OxyContin, their blockbuster narcotic painkiller at the centure of the opioid crisis. The unexpected twists and turns of the Sakler family saga are told against the startling chronicle of a powerful industry that sits at the intersection of public health and profits. Pharma reveals how and why American drug companies have put earnings ahead of patients"--

For decades, medical professionals have been betraying the public's trust by accepting various benefits from the pharmaceutical industry. Drug company representatives and doctors alike have promulgated creative rationalizations to portray this behavior positively, as if it really serves the interest of the public. In Hooked: Ethics, the Medical Profession, and the Pharmaceutical Industry, Howard Brody claims that we can neither understand the problem, nor propose helpful solutions until we fully recognize the many levels of activity that connect these two industries. Then, for real improvement to occur, the doctors themselves need to not only change their behavior, but also change how they view the actions of their peers and colleagues. We can pass laws and enact regulations, so that those physicians that do choose to focus on ethics won't be in an environment where they feel as if they are swimming against too strong a current to make meaningful change, but ultimately a profession has to take responsibility for its own integrity.

We've heard the stories. Pharmaceutical companies failing to warn of side effects. Marketing drugs illegally. Whistleblowers bringing incriminating evidence of corporate machinations leading to huge verdicts and settlements. And in this true-legal thriller, it all started with butterfly ballots putting a presidential election on hold. Meet Stephen A. Sheller, an attorney whose career reads like an encyclopedia of the biggest legal cases of our time. Sheller fought tobacco companies and exposed fraud in their efforts to promote light cigarettes as safer than regular smokes, filed the first suit over the butterfly ballots in the controversial Bush v. Gore presidential election of 2000, and recovered a staggering $6.4 billion by going after pharmaceutical companies whose actions superseded patient safety. Pharmageddon: A Nation Betrayed is the inside story of Sheller's fights to hold accountable powerful pharmaceutical companies for aggressively campaigning for their product's distribution in spite of dangers and side effects many prescription drugs carry. From uncovering the devastating effects on children and elderly to defending all of our rights in an increasingly complex legal system, Sheller has uncovered greed and avarice displayed by these multi-billion dollar corporations. Discover what happens when a legal champion takes up a cause.

Neuropsychedelia examines the revival of psychedelic science since the "Decade of the Brain." After the breakdown of this previously prospering area of psychopharmacology, and in the wake of clashes between counterculture and establishment in the late 1960s, a new generation of hallucinogen researchers used the hype around the neurosciences in the 1990s to bring psychedelics back into the mainstream of science and society. This book is based on anthropological fieldwork and philosophical reflections on life and work in two laboratories that have played key roles in this development: a human lab in Switzerland and an animal lab in California. It sheds light on the central transnational axis of the resurgence connecting American psychedelic culture with the home country of LSD. In the borderland of science and religion, Neuropsychedelia explores the tensions between the use of hallucinogens to model psychoses and to evoke spiritual experiences in laboratory settings. Its protagonists, including the anthropologist himself, struggle to find a place for the mystical under conditions of late-modern materialism.

Describes the causes, effects, treatment options, and research in the field of insomnia.